Re: CPT on South Africa Dispute over Parallel Imports of Pharmaceutical
Drugs
On Monday, October 6, 1997, the South African government's Portfolio
Committee on Health held hearings on proposed legislation to enhance
competition for pharmaceutical drugs. The South African government has
proposed an aggressive program which features the promotion of generic
drugs, and which eliminates barriers to parallel imports of
pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry and the United States
government has lobbied against several features of the legislation.
CPT's comments were supportive of the South African government's
proposals, and focused mostly on the issue of parallel importing of
pharmaceutical drugs, plus a brief discussion of the dispute over
protections for health registration data.
The CPT comments concern two controversial areas of international law
concerning intellectual property. Pharmaceutical companies are seeking
to prohibit cross border trade in pharmaceuticals by asserting that such
trade violates patent and trademark protections. CPT effectively
rebutted the industry's claims international law, and provided empirical
evidence of benefits of parallel imports for HIV drugs. CPT also
briefly responded to pharmaceutical companies assertions that
international law requires regulatory barriers to the use of scientific
data about pharmaceutical drug safety and efficacy -- making it more
difficult for the introduction of generic drugs.
CPT comments are on the web at:
http://www.cptech.org/pharm/sa/sa-10-97.html
If anyone needs a fax copy, please send me a note.
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
love@cptech.org
202.387.8030
http://www.cptech.org
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James Love | Center for Study of Responsive Law
P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 | http://www.cptech.org
voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 | love@cptech.org